Wedding vows – I promised to “obey”

We have been married for 30 years and “to obey” was in our wedding vows. I didn't think much about it then, I just took it for granted that it was part of the vows. I was 21 years old at the time and was so deeply in love that I was just thrilled to be marrying the love of my life.

Knowing what I know now I wish I had known what that vow really means. Our marriage was good but it could have been so much better if I had known.

This summer I decided that I wanted to learn about trust and obedience it just happened that I found the Taken In Hand site by accident. I shared it with my husband and he checked it out, then we decided to incorporate Taken In Hand and the idea of obedience in our marriage relationship.

I have learned a lot and I am still learning and what I can say is that doing this has enhanced our relationship. I am no longer the control freak that I was. I used to think I had to control everything, from my job to our marriage. You can imagine what that was like.

Now, well, I still have to be in control of some things, like my position in my job, but even there I am more relaxed and easygoing. At home my husband and I discuss things and he listens to my input and considers my suggestions but he makes the final decision. Obedience doesn't mean that a woman is a lesser person nor does it mean she is a doormat.

Obedience has changed our marriage because it has changed me. What I mean by “change” is that when I make the choice to obey my husband I feel a sense of satisfaction. (There are times when I take a step backwards and my husband brings me back into focus and rather quickly!)

Obedience is a choice, and as I see it, it is like a gift given to a marriage. It is entirely up to the two individuals involved to decide what vows to make in marriage. But if you like the idea of promising to obey, I encourage you to do so. It may not be popular these days, and it doesn't matter what other people think. It matters what the two of you getting married think. Just follow your hearts.

Kat

Take the Taken In Hand tour

Have you seen the following articles?
The erotic power of unshackled male dominance
The resistant woman
What women want
Liberated through submission
Leadership, strength, emotional intimacy
How my husband took my clothing choices in hand
Love and fear
Human alpha, beta, and omega males: the reality
What happens when he makes a mistake?
Don't tell anyone I'm here!

2004 Dec 3 - 08:39 | add new comment | latest article | previous article | next article |

Obedience is a choice and a gift

I so agree with you, Kat, that obedience is a choice and a gift. Some who write for the site understand obedience as something that a man can demand from his wife-and I suppose he can-but for me it is definately a gift I've chosen to give. That doesn't mean, however, that I can just take back the gift if I want to. As long as my husband is worthy of my obedience, then I shall try my best to give it to him. By "worthy" I use the criteria from the New Testament that a man should love his wife the "way that Christ loves the church." That's a high calling that most men just don't meet! How fortunate we both are that we've been married to men who have proven their love and devotion to us over many, many years!

by Charlotte on 2004 Dec 3 - 18:29 | reply to this comment

Seemingly late to the game...

We left in the 'obey' and it's taken 9.5 years for me to get it through my stubborn skull that life is a lot better with it.

I love, honour and obey... he is then charged with making sure that my needs are met: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual... I think he has the harder role and I love him for it. I make him my first priority and he is the Captain who steers both of our lifes to our goals and dreams or the Gardener who nurtuers and trains the wild bush into something beautiful and full of life.

Suzette
_______
"But sun it is not, when you say it is not; And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is; And so it shall be so for Katharina."

by Suzette B on 2004 Dec 6 - 00:34 | reply to this comment

Meeting your needs

If he's charged with meeting all your needs, emotional, spiritual etc, then I would think he does have the harder role. It seems to me a rather alarming burden to place on someone, to expect them to be responsible for all your needs. Also i would have thought rather unwise, there surely are going to be times when you are going to have to figure things out for yourself, or have feelings about things that your husband can't be responsible for. Mayking him responsible for everything seems to me taking things a bit too far. But then I don't think I could ever see myself as a bush.

"The free haggard (which is the woman that has wing and knows it, Spirit and Plume) will make an hundred checks to show her freedom, sail in ev'ry air, and look out ev'ry pleasure, not regarding Lure nor quarry till her pitch command what she desires..." John Fletcher, The Tamer Tamed.

by Louise C on 2004 Dec 6 - 08:35 | reply to this comment

"love, honor and obey"

When my husband and I married almost 23 years ago, I made the minister remove the word "obey". SECRETLY I wanted it to stay in. But I was in denial over what I really was that from fear of what "others" would say, I made them remove it. I am so angry at myself now for that, and its a mistake that cannot be undone.

It would not have been an issue one way or the other if we'd been married before a justice of the peace/judge as I'd wanted...but I am Jewish and my husband was a Christian then, and since no rabbi would perform an intermarriage, we had no choice but to be married by his minister (because my husband wanted some sort of religious ceremony), hence the standard (of that time) Protestant wedding service we ended up with. It might interest you to know that in the traditional Jewish ceremony, there is no command for the wife to obey...the promises are all made by the husband (such as to provide for her materially, sexually and in all other ways)!

by BlueRose on 2005 Jul 6 - 23:29 | reply to this comment

I can not find the traditional wedding vows...

I've been married to my wife for almost 5 years (anniverssary in 11 days)

We did not have the and obey wedding vows. My wife is a doctor and makes 3 times what I do. I regret not having and obey in the wedding vows. I now regret marring a doctor too.

I had to fill out a survey a year ago and when I came to "are you the head of house hold" it took me over five minutes to come up with the answer.

For five years I have taken orders. I've tried to get her to understand that I do not work for her. The bet I got was for her to say "would you please do x" instaed of "Do x now!" She yells and screams if I say "no" when she tells me to do something.

I've moved out in to my own apartment, I make over $100k and have an MBA. I'm not coming back until she recites the traditional wedding vows. I've been looking for the entire afternoon and have yet to find a single wedding site that has the part where the wife agrees to obey.

Lets put it this way: I will never marry another doctor. I will never marry a woman that makes more money than I do, or has a higher education. I never was concerned about this until 5 years of marriage with this woman, who reminds me of this fact on a daily basis.

I finished moving to my own apartment this afternoon, and I feel great. I feel like a new man. More importantly I feel like a man again. As I left I told her. "I don't need this kind of treatment in life. I do not need a doctor, I need a wife."

I don't care about giving orders, but one thing is for sure. I'm done taking orders at home.

My only regret is leaving my two boys: one 4 years and one 18 months. I believe its better that Dad moves out, rather than having them watch mom yell, scream and throw things at dad.

I've been online looking for the traditional weeding vows to mail to her. I can't find them. Bottom line is, I'm not coming back unless she recites them. If she won't the next wife will. Its a MUST in my book.

Adam, a man again.

by Adam_76 on 2007 Feb 12 - 01:18 | reply to this comment

Money and shouting

Your wife seems to have behaved very unkindly towards you. I should like to point out however, that the fact that she has a better job and earns more money than you, is probably not in itself an explanation for her behaviour.

Years ago I knew a man who was married to a woman who was far better educated than him (she had a Phd, he'd left school at sixteen like me). She had a far better job than him (and they worked in the same place),and she earned a lot more money. Yet she was completely under his thumb. He had a very dominant nature, and he wasn't always very nice to her, yet she put up with everything. Money and jobs were not the issue.

It's possible that your wife would be just the same even if you did earn more money than she. My mother had a very explosive temperement and did a lot of shouting and yelling,and she didn't earn anything, she was a 'traditional' stay-at-home wife. That didn't prevent the shouting and yelling. And in my own case, although I've never gone in much for shouting and yelling (silent sulking being more my thing), I was very far from submissive to my husband for many years, the fact that he earns about five times as much as I could ever expect to earn if I got a job makes no difference. Money and jobs were not the issue with us either.

And on the subject of wedding vows, reciting them is NOT a guarantee that she will keep them.I knew a woman years ago who said those vows at her wedding not because she had the slightest intention of keeping them, but just because she wanted a 'traditional' wedding. She and her husband got divorced a few years later, and are now both very happily married to other people

I wish you well in any future relationships you may have, but I am merely pointing out that the fact that a woman earns less money than you, and is willing to recite 'traditonal' wedding vows, are not in themselves guarantees that she will be an obedient wife.

Louise

by Louise C on 2007 Feb 13 - 05:45 | reply to this comment

I am sorry that you were trea

I am sorry that you were treated in such a way. Making more money than someone is no reason to treat them poorly. I do agree with Louise though. I think that personality and temperment is what it is. I don't think that if I were to suddenly get a job that allowed me to make 100,000 a year or more it would change at all who I am (though I'd love to find out, in my profession I'll never seen anything close to that).

As far as divorce and the kids, certainly it is painful for children to see their parents in constant stress, especially if it becomes physical (throwing things etc.). It also provides a lousy example for children that when you are angry the best solution is to lose control and throw things.

I am the product of a very amicable divorce. My parents could not live together. They simply did not work as a couple, but I never doubted that either of them loved me. They were always able to at the very least be sociable with each other.

One of my favorite movies is Step Mom. There is a line in the movie in which the mother tells her child that she loves him. The child asks if he loves 'him' (his father). The mother responds: "I will always love your daddy because he gave me you." Even if you can't work things out, for the sake of your kids, please try to love their mother in at least that way.

by cj on 2007 Feb 16 - 18:46 | reply to this comment

Wrongs and rights

Adam, you are a rat. What would be the point of anyone making any kind of a vow to you at any future point when you treat your own existing vows as if they were meaningless? You promised to love her - and yet you walk out the door. Why did you make that vow to her in the first place if it was entirely conditional? Didn't you realise that you might find the path rocky in places?

And don't tell me you don't love her. Sure it's hard to love someone who constantly shouts at you and demeans you. But love is not just a feeling. It's also a verb, it's something you do. No matter how hateful her behaviour, go love her. Try to understand her before you try to change her. And you can change her - by changing yourself.

Please understand me, I have NO sympathy for your wife. She has treated you appallingly. But two wrongs don't make a right.

We live in a world where everyone seems to think that when a marriage turns sour it's time to bail out. Well anyone can do that but at what cost to your kids? You may be feeling great right now but how about them? What's more it's totally unnecessary. There's a vast literature out there on how to save a marriage single handed - no need for marriage counselling or a promise on her part to commit to change at all. In any relationship if one partner changes the other can't help but change with them. So do the right thing by your kids. Have a look at Divorce Busting by Michelle Weiner Davis as a first place to start.

Walking out is easy - making the commitment to stay and change things single handed takes real guts. But if you want to be the head of a household with a loving respectful wife, you're going to have to grow some real guts. After all, how come your relationship got into this state in the first place? If you think all the blame lies with your wife then think again. In any relationship each partner must accept a full 50% of the blame for anything that goes wrong.

I hope you will take these words to heart. I write from both painful and positive experience. I know first hand that it is possible to effect change by first changing yourself and to make a rotten relationship something worth treasuring. I wish you a stout heart and good luck.

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2007 Feb 18 - 19:27 | reply to this comment

Love, Power & Money

I've read through this thread and everyone who responded to Adam thinks that women making more money than their husband doesn't matter. Well, I beg to differ. While there are some men out there for whom this is not an issue, I haven't met them. I have many male friends who are quite open about the subject. They all say that they wouldn't date, more less marry, a woman who makes more money than they do. They say it is because they want to take care of her and any children they have and if the wife makes more, this isn't too likely. They also equate money with power.

I think men's egos are easily bruised when their wife makes more money then the man because men often define themselves by their ability to care for their loved ones. Many men WANT to be needed! (Mine certainly does). And let's face it, if your wife makes 3 times as much as you, you might not feel so needed.

So while I think Adam and his wife should (or hopefully did) figure out how to work things out, the reality is that the power dynamic assoicated with money is there and needs to be dealt with. As a product of divorce and a person who went through a divorce after 10 years of marriage, I know that it's not always the best option, but it can be the only option after a while. So if you tried your best and can't make it work, do what you have to do... I wish you well.

by M- on 2008 Dec 24 - 17:10 | reply to this comment

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